Autopsy of body found by river yields few clues

An autopsy Thursday on badly decomposed human remains found along the Des Plaines River revealed little about who the person was and how she or he died.

The Will County coroner's office said DNA testing that may determine the body's identity will take at least two weeks.

There has been speculation the body could be Stacy Peterson, who disappeared from her Bolingbrook home in October 2007, or Lisa Stebic, the Plainfield mother who went missing in April of that year.

While the autopsy indicated that the person has been dead several months or more, it "did not reveal any significant information in reference to the identity, race or sex" of the person, the coroner's office said.

Authorities said there is no timetable for making a determination on who the person was, and nothing new has came to light that would link the remains to either of the two missing women.

The remains were found along the banks of the river near Channahon, just west of I-55, an area where searchers have looked for Peterson since she disappeared Oct. 28, 2007.

A plastic blue barrel was spotted in the vicinity of the body. Channahon resident Michelle Williams told WGN Radio host John Williams on Thursday that she and her husband saw the barrel in heavy brush on the riverbank on Sunday and she saw it again on Tuesday.

Drew Peterson's stepbrother, Thomas Morphey, has said that he helped Peterson remove a blue container from Peterson's home on the day that Stacy disappeared, and that he believed Stacy's body was inside it.

But others familiar with the river said blue barrels there are a common sight. Paul Dareak, a bartender at Mugzy's Hideout, a nearby bar, said he sees them all the time and that some people throw them in as a joke, knowing about the possible connection to Stacy Peterson's disappearance.